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Electrodialytic remediation of CCA-treated waste wood (CCA wood)
Start date: Aug 1, 2001, End date: Jul 1, 2003 PROJECT  FINISHED 

Background The project addressed the problem of disposing of CCA (Chromate Copper arsenate) impregnated wood. CCA is to date the most widely used wood preservative worldwide, and the amount of treated wood is expected to increase in the years to come, both in Denmark and in the Community as a whole. The waste wood generated often still contains high concentrations of Chromium, Copper and Arsenic due to the strong fixation of CCA in the wood. Incineration of the waste wood is therefore not an option, and presently the only way of disposal is land filling. Electrodialytic remediation, using a low level current as a cleaning agent, is a possible method of removing Chromium, Copper and Arsenic from the wood. The method had been developed and patented by researchers at DTU, the Technical University of Denmark prior to the project, and had already proved to be efficient on the laboratory scale. Objectives The objective of the project was to design and build a pilot plant and to demonstrate that the method developed for the remediation of Chromate Copper arsenate (CCA) treated wood, which had been optimised to the maximum possible extent in the laboratory, was applicable at pilot plant scale. A further aim was to make estimates regarding the efficiency and competitiveness of the method at the industrial scale level. Results In this project a pilot plant for the electrodialytic remediation of CCA treated waste wood was developed and a series of remediation experiments were completed. The results obtained have shown that it is possible to remove CCA from treated wood chips on a larger scale than the laboratory one. On the basis of the experiences obtained with the pilot plant in this project, it is expected that the remediation process could be reproduced on an industrial scale. An important limiting factor for implementation of the remediation process in full scale is the time it takes for remediation. The present project has shown that at the given experimental conditions the remediation process is not finished even after several weeks. The remediation time must be shortened significantly if it is to be possible to treat all the incoming amounts of CCA impregnated waste wood. Test results demonstrate that Arsenic, which is the element of greatest environmental concern, has been removed almost completely from the wood (

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